That Much Further West

I’m a good girl these days. I would say most people describe me as square and prudish, right? Okay, probably not. But back in the day (say, 10 years ago), I was a wild child. Or at least a curious and defiant child. Or at the very least, a sometimes poor decision making child. Or more commonly, I did some drugs in college.

So when I was 19, I went to visit Fen, the ex-friend of my ex-boyfriend from Cleveland. Why was I visiting my ex’s ex-friend? I guess we were both mourning the loss of a truly special person in our lives and thought that maybe by being together, we would have a little piece of him with us. Our ex didn’t die or anything… he just moved on.

Fen had come to visit my roommate Melissa and I in Chicago, and I in turn visited him in Cleveland. It was his birthday weekend, and I promised one helluva a weekend. I showed up with shrooms. Neither of us had ever done shrooms before.

We opened up the Scrabble board and laid out our booty. We ate the nasty little things one at a time. We giggled and smirked. Then we acted miffed that nothing happened and put some records on.

I have no idea what happened in what order after that. I know bats fell from the ceiling and the walls started dripping. I know I ate a hot dog bun for what seemed like an hour. I watched the most beautiful sunset of my life. Fen freaked out and cleaned his entire apartment–vacuumed and everything. He even reorganized his entire record collection. He surmised that if he did normal things, he would go back to normal. It didn’t work. But in the meantime, we listened to Lucero. I had never listened to Lucero before, and I fell in love with them. We were listening to their first album (self-titled). It wasn’t just my state of mind… “My Best Girl” is still one of my favorite songs ever.

Fen and I went for a walk, and after what turned out to be 10 hours, we finally came down. We sat overlooking Lake Eerie, huddled in each others arms, never happier to be sober, to look out across a night sky, to breathe, to be in good company, but mostly, to be normal again.

I left Cleveland that weekend with three important things: my sanity, a tattoo, and Lucero.

That Much Further West is not the record I listened to during this experience. But I think that’s kind of the point. I love the self-titled record, and Lucero is great live, but That Much Further West never had the same significance to me. What’s special about this record is that it’s SUPER RARE. Limited edition (459/500) with a screen printed cover. You will not find this in any record stores, ladies and gentlemen. It’s a gem and a rare find. But, alas, it’s time to say…